I, too, have never switched to using any kind of tablet, because it is as you described: It is like telling a blind man to draw for you, and you have to buy a new keyboard because you damn worn out the Ctrl+Z fixing every mark you ever made on it. XD

So I just sketch with pencil on paper, then use actual ink to ink the linearts. Then I scan it in to do the coloring in Corel.

Not really sure what you mean by "finessing the line."

If you're having trouble getting a thick and thin line, maybe you need to adjust your pressure sensitivity?

Not thick and thin, but faint and bold. Sketching that involves a lot of light, loose imprecise lines, then go back over making a darker, more precise line where it should be. What are recommended settings to begin with?

Ah, ok. Photoshop has a setting that translates pressure into opacity. I make use of that a lot when I'm sketching up roughs.

If you're using CS6, you'll want to go into your brush settings, and under transfer, set opacity jitter to be controlled by pen pressure.

(shrug) I'm still using a mouse after 30+ years, myself.

I'd just as soon use a potato and elementary school tempura paint, I'd have finer control over what I'm doing.

True for telling. Still, I manage to do a fairly good job of coloring things...

The short answer is "no."

The not-quite-as-short answer is that about a year ago I was freelancing on a show where the network wanted everything drawn on a tablet. I borrowed a waccom tablet with about a 6x10" screen. I was putting in long hours to keep up with the deadlines, and by the end of five months I was profoundly depressed. In the past I'd drawn on larger, newer tablets, but I didn't like them much better.

there are tablet PCs where you can draw on the screen directly. myself I have a fujitsu laptop with 11" screen and wacom surface to use with that, but it's a bit bulky. modern tablet PS are very thin.
and probably pricey...

right at the moment I can't recommend anything, haven't looked into them really yet. wacom offers a thing with a 4 digit price tag, but if I'm not mistaken there are many cheaper brands that work as well. a friend of mine uses such a device, but I don't know what brand.

if that doesn't help with digital art, nothing will. but really, I know what you mean. I haven't tried a graphics tablet yet, but I doubt it will be for me.

as for pencils and digital ink, try turning down the opacity of the sketch before you ink. and if the new inks don't look how you want, swicth the sketch off, turn the lines opacity down, and draw over them again.

Hell, you saw me struggling with a Surface at AC, still haven't grasped it yet.

You can invest months (years?) of time - and, of course, a wad of cash - in learning how to use such digital doodaddery.....so that eventually, you can create art on a tablet that's about as good as the art you already can create on paper. The point of such escapes me, especially if you are mostly doing art for fun. Is having to store original art on paper such a burden?

Wish I could help but I've never had a problem transitioning from traditional to tablet. It's a strange animal indeed, having to draw while watching it appear somewhere else but I can do it..just takes a bit of time. To be honest though I do prefer using pencil pen and paper, but for me it's just a matter of NOT treating the tablet and digital software as traditional.
Hope that helps somewhat.

The biggest difference I have experienced was between simple graphics pads, like the Intuous, and graphics monitors you can draw on. For me, it took about 10 years of dedicated practice to master the pads where one watched the screen, rather than one's hand. The Graphics monitors are a very tiny step up from traditional pencils to digital, but they are vastly expensive (often equal or greater cost than the computer it is attached to), and require a Computer fast enough to minimize latency (lag). For a professional, mastering tablets and pads are necessary (see: Mkaz above), but for hobbyists, it's probably not so much. For the longest while I would still "pencil" out ideas (Including this years Joyeux Noel and Happy Nude Deer offerings) with traditional tools, but I would ink and color with digital tools, as inking for me was easier using a pad or tablet, with regards to mess, and clean up and minimizing mistakes, But I still maintain my traditional skills. Color, Digital is hands down the way to go. Unless you are willing to make the 10 year commitment to digital input devices, then I do not think they would be worth your while. I just find them more convenient.

sadly, it USED to be a lot more traditional friendly. I remember using a light pen, which was EXACTLY like drawing on paper, since the line traced where the pen was on the screen. I have the same trouble with using a tablet. I don't know where to find a light pen these days. Seriously, it would read the screen and draw on it, and it was a lot cheaper than the graphics monitors. I don't know what ever happened to them.


Seriously, I'm surprised nobody else on here mentioned light pens.

I just see it as approaching art in a different way. It's folly to try to impose the same workflow on a different medium, to make the tablet behave like pencil and ink. When going from oils to acrylics, for example, you handle them in completely different ways and approach paintings differently. Try to handle encaustic like you would tempera, and it will make you cry like a lost chihuahua. In working digitally, I see the most success in using it a little bit more like oil paint, blocking in from coarse to fine. There are some tools for doing manga-style line work (Manga Studio being the chief one), which people use with great success, but since I've never done linework like that in the paper world, I have not approached art like that in the digital world, either. That being said, I bet there are a few pictures in my gallery that might fool you as to whether they are 100% digital or 100% traditional media (most things I upload are somewhere in between). Some of them I actually did approach in the same way I might a pencil or charcoal drawing—except that erasing in digital actually WORKS.

One thing I love about digital that paper never gave me is layers. I've been working with digital tablets since about 1986, but only using them for art for about the last 20 years. I had to adapt a bit when I went from the 4x6 tablet that I used for years to the 8x10 tablet I have now.

As far as my CURRENT investment in digital technology, I spent about $20 on my Wacom Intuos2 (it needed some minor repairs), and I use Krita and MyPaint, so my investment in digital is about, um, $20. Well, to be fair, I did pick up a copy of Clip Studio EX (Manga Studio) for $69, which is a pretty neat tool that I've used a fair amount (far less than it's capable of—I want to get into its comics capabilities), and I've spent money on a couple of other digital products with varying degrees of fun and/or interest. All of them put together is less than the cost of a few weeks of groceries, though. I gave up on Photoshop after V7, when they went to the repressive, evil CS licensing scheme (and it's only gotten worse, since then).